1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a heat treatment apparatus, a controller for the heat treatment apparatus and a method for controlling the heat treatment apparatus, more specifically to a heat treatment apparatus in which temperatures of objects-to-be-processed can be incontiguously estimated, and a controller for the heat treatment apparatus and a method for controlling the heat treatment apparatus.
2. Related Background Art
One apparatus for making heat treatments on objects-to-be-processed, such as semiconductor wafers (hereinafter called wafers) or others, which is used in semiconductor device fabrication methods is a vertical heat treatment apparatus for batch treatment. In this vertical heat treatment apparatus, a number of wafers are held horizontally in a shelves-like manner on a holder, such as wafer boat or others, and the holder is loaded in the vertical heat treatment apparatus for a heat treatment, e.g., CVD (Chemical Vapor Deposition), oxidation, etc.
To make a heat treatment on the wafers it is necessary to precisely control temperatures of the wafers. For example, in forming a thin film on the wafers by, e.g., CVD, a film thickness of the thin film depends on temperatures of the wafers. Accordingly, the temperature control of the heat treatment apparatus must be performed with high accuracy.
The heat control has been conventionally made by loading the wafers with thermocouples into the heat treatment apparatus to meter temperatures of the wafers.
However, when the wafers with thermocouples are loaded in the heat treatment apparatus, there is a risk that the metal forming the thermocouples disperses in the heat treatment apparatus and stays on the inside of the heat treatment apparatus, with a result that the staying metal adheres to the wafers, causing metal contamination.